Since we discovered that the b-spirit.com weblog has readers in Germany too, here are the ten reasons to blog for business, written in german by Klaus Eck: 10 Gruende fuer das Business-Bloggen.

Via CorporateBloggingBlog.

Times Online writes about business blogs, specifically CEOs’ blogs and the reasons why they are blogging.

Executives start blogging for a number of reasons. They want to raise their personal profile. They want to reach out to customers and members of their own staff without going through official channels and PR departments. They want to be seen as a forward thinking company up to date with the latest trend.

Via Outils Froids.

SAP, the world’s largest inter-enterprise software company, is blogging actively! See the weblogs of their executive staff as well as the developers. In the latest issue of SAP INFO - which is an online customer magazine - they interview Martin Röll about the basics of blogging, the bloggers and the benefits for enterprises.

Via CorporateBloggingBlog.

Business blogs begin to boom. Several examples of the search engine value of the business blog.

• The search engines like fresh content.
• Bloggers are free and generous linkers (the search engines credit linked sites very highly).
• Blogs have relevant and on topic content (part of what the search engines expect from a top ranking website).

“Webmasters see blogs as adding tremendous value to the bottom lines of their online businesses. Through a combination of high search engine rankings, and returning website visitors to read the latest blog postings, more customers are created for the business.”

Three interesting excerpts of eWEEK.com articles about RSS in a business context. Without any doubt, content syndication and integration of RSS readers and feeds will accelerate in the business environment in the coming months.

Via Weblogger.ch.

It is about time! HP publishes two good summaries about blogging:

• 5 steps to blogging. This is an introduction to personal blogging as well as an easy step-by-step plan to build your personal weblog, and thus to avoid spending the time and expense of creating and paying for your own website.
  

  “It’s no wonder that blogging has caught on in such a big way. It’s easy to do, easy to share with other people and easy to find yourself with hundreds of new friends overnight.”

• Small & Medium Business: technology tips. This 101 describes the different technical aspects of weblogs, such as RSS and syndication. It also gives a pretty good insight on what business blogs are about.
  

  “At a glance, companies might dismiss blogs as just the latest Internet fad filling the hours of angst-ridden teens and connecting esoteric technophiles. But an increasing number of companies now recognizes the potential of blogs as business tools. Microsoft for example, hosts hundreds of blogs maintained by its employees. And hundreds of growing businesses are publishing blogs in hopes of one day becoming the next Microsoft.”

Via Weblog Tools Collection and Lee’s Weblog.

Intranet Trends to Watch For on Line56.com gives an insight on some common issues for organisations as intranets continue to evolve.

“… employee weblogs are transforming how organizations perceive, interact, value and share information. The emphasis is moving away from searching for specific pieces of information occasionally to scanning information across a variety of sources (primarily weblogs) on a daily basis. This weblog phenomenon reduces the importance of information retrieval while raising knowledge levels across the whole organization.”

Via Dana’s Blog.